The Keeper's Six by Kate Elliott

Author:Kate Elliott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

12

The heat dissipated. The worst had passed.

Esther tried to speak but her mouth was too dry.

Lydia said, “Count off.”

“I think I broke my shoulder,” said Marianne.

“Do you mean that?” Lydia asked sharply.

“I hope not. Fuck.”

“I’m fine,” said Faye, although the tightness in her voice suggested she was shaken up.

Gus said nothing but he would be unaffected by the wild ride.

Shahin said, hoarsely, “What was that?”

“Bonfire Bright,” said Marianne as she rubbed her shoulder. “Evil twin to Icy Bright. Since Icy Bright is already evil you can see how bad it would have been to be caught out in it.”

Shahin murmured, “‘Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.’”

Esther managed to moisten her mouth enough to speak. “Did you major in Earth literature?”

“What does ‘major’ mean in this context? A thing of significance? A military rank?”

“Never mind. I’m surprised you know so much Earth-based poetry.”

He recited something in Chinese.

Lydia laughed, and replied in that language, then said, “Of course I prefer Li Bai, but I like my wine.”

“You studied Earth literature in multiple languages. Right.” Esther sighed. “Never mind. Mar? How is your shoulder really? Do we need to splint it?”

Beside her, bumping up against her because space was so tight, Marianne manipulated and moved her arm. “I guess it’s only bruised but wow does it hurt. The good news is we are still on the spine. It should be safe to open up.”

“‘Should be,’” muttered Shahin.

“That’s the spirit!” said Esther with a laugh made harsh by her dry throat.

She groped for her hip flask and held it out. The others took a sip and handed it back to her for her own swig. The pure burn gave her the energy she needed to douse the light. The dome vanished as if swallowed with the whiskey, a shield one instant and then gone as if it had never existed.

They were still seated on the dragon’s spine but had been blown all the way to its tail end, mere steps from a steep, short drop to the ground. The landscape had changed utterly. Multiple crevices cut the once-flat plain, making the ground impassable where it had split apart, every crack now a chasm. There was no sign of the other Hex on the spine and certainly not anywhere on the riven ground.

Esther rubbed her eyes, so bone weary that she couldn’t imagine how to stand. Had the other Hex died even though they’d tried to warn them? Had the Beyond devoured them? At times like this she half believed the Beyond had consciousness, as if the physical aspects of the Beyond were a corpus, as if an intangible mind poured a Bright through itself hoping to catch and absorb the minds and energy of interlopers crawling unwanted and unasked across its magical flesh. The Beyond was minding its own business, wasn’t it? It hadn’t asked to become a pathway for all these traveling creatures. Maybe it was fighting back in the only way it could, or maybe she should have tried harder to make sure the other Hex had understood her warning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.